


Dies Irae

by last_illusions (injured_eternity)



Category: Criminal Minds, In Plain Sight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-02
Updated: 2009-10-28
Packaged: 2017-10-17 08:46:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/175042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/injured_eternity/pseuds/last_illusions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vengeance comes in dreams and nightmares alike, testing endurance, patience, character. In the aftermath of the Reaper, Aaron Hotchner fights with both and tries to simply do his job. Character and team study post-ep for 5x01; rated for violent imagery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ethelindi (eventide)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eventide/gifts), [darkmagic_luvr](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=darkmagic_luvr).



> Spoilers: 4x18 ["Omnivore"], 5x01 ["Nameless, Faceless"]  
> Warnings: child abuse, violence
> 
> With the airing of 5x09 ["100"], this piece is now technically an AU.
> 
> The cast of USA Network's _In Plain Sight_ is featured in parts four and five of this story, but you _do not_ need to be familiar with the show to understand what's going on. I simply couldn't resist bringing in some pre-established US Marshals. :)

_Monsters are real, and ghosts are real, too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win_.  
\--Stephen King

It is in darkness that memories seem larger than life, more threatening and more lethal. In darkness, fears become nightmares, and shadows lurk at the edges of consciousness, threatening our peace. If we have none, they seek then to steal our hope. If hope, too, has eluded us, the shadows have no further work to which to attend, for we welcome them in.

After the team has left, St Sebastian hospital falls dark. The LEDs that light up the machines emit a soft glow, and the fluorescents over the nurses’ station are kept on, just enough light to keep staff from tripping over themselves.

In the hospital rooms, the half-light throws shadows across the walls, and under the haze of morphine, he can begin to believe they move. He’s restless long after the others leave, desperation and loss itching beneath his skin like sandpaper despite the drugs, taunting him, mocking him. The day has left its mark; that it has been more than twenty-four hours since Foyet’s assault began does not matter in his mental stopwatch, especially because so many of those hours do not exist in his conscious memory.

There comes the fleeting wish that Foyet had simple shot him, execution-style, or even let him bleed out, for then he’d have been spared the memory of the look in Haley’s eyes as she stood at the foot of his bed and asked him why. He’d not had to have seen Jack’s quiet fear, the hesitance that said he knew something was wrong, just not what. The thought is banished as quickly as it arises, leaving him with a bad taste in his mouth and guilt heavy on his shoulders. He should be grateful he’s alive, and yet the bitterness remains, unyielding as adamant. He watched his life walk away that afternoon, and there’s a desperate fear he cannot give voice to that he will never see them again and Foyet will win.

David Rossi’s quiet certainty rings in his ears, and he wishes he shared the other agent’s conviction, because a lifeline would be a blessing. He has the best people in the country on his team, but if Foyet simply disappears, not even the best will be able to find him, and this frightens him immensely. His son is perhaps the one thing in his life he has done remotely close to right, and he can picture the vague, polite recognition ten, fifteen years down the line so clearly it makes his breath catch in his throat.

Finally— _finally_ —the morphine overrides the hamster wheel his brain is struggling to run, and he falls into a restless, uncomfortable sleep.

He dreams, that night; he dreams of blood and pain and blunt force and shadows; he dreams of a looming darkness that threatens to swallow him; he dreams of his father.

He sees Foyet standing over him, knife in hand, blade glinting in the low light; he feels the heavy, booted foot slam into his ribs, feels the compression of air shoved from his lungs and the reflexive panic that comes with not being able to properly breathe. Then George Foyet turns into David Hotchner (this might well be why Rossi is always “Dave” and never “David”), and he himself is four again, struck across the face and given his first broken bone.

He’s seven, and his father is raining blows on him left, right, sideways. It’s been… at least a month since the last time he’d been hit, at least three since it was this bad, and when a calculated blow breaks his arm, he screams.

He’s usually silent.

His father screams back, telling him to suck it up, that real men don’t cry; it never occurs to his young mind to say that he’s still a boy, and he doesn’t understand what his father wants. It’s a day before they get him to the hospital, where they tell the ER staff he got into a fight walking home from school. They’re a hairs’ breadth away from having to re-break the bone just to set it, but this time he doesn’t cry.

He’s eleven, and he watches his father try to strike Sean. The man is drunk and just off-balance enough that Aaron can step between them. His baby brother is five years old and terrified, and Aaron stands up to his father for the first time, saying, “I just got in your way.” It blends with the alcohol to form a good distraction. He ends the night with two broken ribs and another trip to the ER (he fell down the stairs this time), but his father never goes after Sean again.

He’s fourteen, sprawled on the kitchen floor and trying to avoid his father’s boots. He thanks god they’re not steel-toed. David Hotchner calls him worthless, a failure, a pansy, a mistake—everything people think a parent should never call their child. Stoically, he takes it all, doing his best to block the worst of the blows (and they wondered why he pushed himself until he scored top of his class in hand-to-hand, determined never to be a victim again) and nearly biting through his lip in his effort to remain silent.

Not until the rest of the house is asleep and he’s in bed with the lights off does he let the burning behind his eyes become anything more. The tears are too hot against the cold of his skin (his father has adopted the practise of turning off the water heater after he showers, making his son shower in the cold), silent and humiliating, and he prays his father won’t find a reason to come in even though he doesn’t know why: in fourteen years, God hasn’t yet answered his prayers, and he has no reason to believe He’ll start now.

He’s sixteen, and his best friend makes a comment about how his father came home the night before, more drunk than he’s ever seen him. He’s openly amused, commenting that his father’s a bit obnoxious when he’s drunk, and Aaron glances at him in surprise.

“My father hits me when he’s drunk,” he says offhandedly, “but it’s worse when he’s sober.”

It’s the first time he’s ever bothered to mention it aloud to anyone, and it takes the horror on Greg Daniels’ face to make him realise that perhaps not all fathers beat their children. With this comes the half-desperate extraction of the promise that Greg will never tell anyone, and it’s obvious his friend is torn between saving his friend and saving his friendship. Finally, he agrees.

He’s eighteen, in a knock-down, drag-out fight with his father the likes of which they’ve never engaged in before. He’s been mercifully spared the psychological maladjustment that often accompanies abuse—he might be a little manic in his desperation to never _be_ his father, but Greg is the only one who knows—but it’s never occurred to him to hit back.

He loses. Badly. He’d graduated high school a month later and moved out, seeing a psychologist at his university in his sophomore year after his father died, but the dreams refuse to acknowledge that. Instead, his father becomes Foyet, standing over him with hatred and not a little malicious glee in his eyes. He relives it even if he doesn’t consciously remember it, and the faces of George Foyet and David Hotchner flicker and blend together like a bad hologram.

Then he finds himself standing over a body in a hospital in Des Plaines, Illinois, ingratiating himself with their unsub (who’s not at this point unknown any longer, but his unconscious is willing to ignore these details) and pretending to enjoy throwing insults and injury both at his still-green agent. Only this time there’s no pretending, and Spencer Reid’s pleading is infused with genuine fear that makes the unsub laugh. At some point, it registers in the back of his mind that his agent isn’t moving anymore.

Before he has time to do more than be horrified, he’s somewhere he doesn’t recognise, standing over another body and shouting his father’s words, driven to the same actions by a will not his own. The body—the child—rolls over, and he realises with a jolt of horror that it’s Jack, begging him to stop and apologising for imagined offences. He ignores them, and both assault and pleading continue. It’s when he sees the blade flash in his right hand and the terror in his son’s eyes that he wakes himself up.

His breath is coming too fast, his cheeks damp, and he tries to slow his breathing as he brings shaking hands to his face; the last thing he needs is the nurses running in because he starts hyperventilating. Instinctively, he reaches for the phone, heedless of the hour, and then the realisation that he no longer knows how to reach them is insult upon injury. It serves only to solidify the breach, the hurt worse than Foyet’s blade slicing through his skin as it slips down his temples into his hair.

Drawing in an uneven breath that sounds too loud in the darkness, he reaches up to wipe his eyes. The movement hurts, but he’s grateful for the distraction of pain. While knocking himself out is a tempting option, he reaches for the water next to the bed instead. It takes effort, which takes focus, which means he can stop replaying the dream in his mind. It doesn’t last long, but he doesn’t bother trying to fall asleep. He doubts it will present much in the way of improvement.

Then movement outside his room catches his eye, and he freezes, wishing for a moment he had his gun. Since he doesn’t, he reaches for the call button, finger hovering over it like a metronome in its smallest arc. “Who’s there?”

The door slides open all the way, and someone says sheepishly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“What are you doing here, Emily?” he asks his agent in surprise, and he sees the silhouette of her shrug. “You should be home, sleeping,” he points out, and she shrugs again.

After all, she can’t very well tell him she tried and couldn’t because she kept thinking he was dead.

“I’m sorry,” she says awkwardly. “I’ll let you go back to sleep.”

Shaking his head, he gestures at the chair beside the bed. “It’s okay.”

Still awkward, she sits, slumping into it like the effort of sitting up straight is too much. She doesn’t speak, letting the silence run its course, but he can feel her eyes on him. This is, for them, uneven (uncharted?) ground; he’s well aware he doesn’t spend as much time with his team outside of work as he used to, and he knows she’s not certain how to act around him when they’re not on the clock. What he _doesn’t_ know is why she’s there.

“Dave said you guys did well on the case today,” he offers finally, and again she shrugs (he thinks her shoulders will be sore in short order if she keeps that up), but he hears the wry smile in her voice when she answers.

“They did,” she says. “I spent most of it at your place, but aside from Reid getting shot, today was good.”

“Thank you for that.” His voice is low, sincere.

She nods. “Thank Garcia. She called every hospital in a ten-mile radius and then some.”

There’s a pause; then, “What did he do? Leave me in front of the main doors?”

In the dark, he can feel her surprise, and it laces her voice when she speaks. “No one told you?”

He shakes his head before it occurs to him she can’t see that, so he explains, “Amidst everything else, it never came up.”

She hesitates; he sees the shadows of movement in her lap as she twists her fingers together, but he doesn’t push. “He dropped you off as a John Doe with Morgan’s credentials.”

Closing his eyes, he bites back the instinctive response of, “Fuck.” Foyet had picked a brilliant way to get to the younger agent, and Hotch holds no illusions that this will help.

“He’s fine,” Emily says, reading the silence for what it is. “He knows what he’s trying to do.”

Lips quirk up in a bitter parody of a smile. “That doesn’t always help.” It’s a moment before he hears his own words, and he flinches away like they’re the singing lash of a whip. She didn’t need to hear that.

“Are _you_ okay?” she asks hesitantly.

In the dark, she can afford the question she’d probably never ask him in daylight unless he was stretched out on the ground bleeding to death. In the dark, he can afford the answer he’d probably never give unless he knew they were the last two people on earth.

“I’m afraid I’ll never see them again.” The words are barely a whisper, blending in with the low-level hum of the machinery, but she hears them anyway, and he repeats his words to Dave that afternoon. “What will Jack remember of his father in ten years?”

Emboldened by the darkness and perhaps compromised by exhaustion, she reaches up almost reflexively, wrapping her hands around his larger one. He’s too startled to pull away.

“We’ll find him, Hotch,” she declares fiercely. Her voice is no louder than his, but she echoes Dave’s conviction perfectly even if she does not know it. “We’ll find him even if he stops killing.” Looking up, eyes a dark sparkle amidst the shadows, she finds his gaze and holds it. “He won’t do to you what he did to Shaunessey.”

He says nothing, neither trusting himself to speak nor wanting to hurt her by voicing his disbelief. In response, she grips his hand harder, until she can feel his pulse beneath her fingers. “Do you believe me?”

Sighing, he wishes he could shrug. Because he can’t, he forces himself to look her full in the face. “I want to.” His voice almost breaks; he refuses to let it. “I really do.”

She nods, recognising the words for what they are: all he can give. She doesn’t let go of his hand, and he’s grateful, because the contact grounds him and he doesn’t know if he’d be able to hold on if she pulled away—he’s learned the hard way not to try to keep things that wish to leave.

They sit there in the dark, and he doesn’t see the tears in her eyes; she doesn’t see the one that escapes his iron control to trail down his cheek. Neither of them move, trying to keep up the pretence of calm, and come morning he’ll be reminded of something an old philosophy professor once told him: “In darkness one may be ashamed of what one does, without the shame of disgrace.” Sophocles.

  
 _Feedback is always appreciated._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional spoilers: 5x02 ["Haunted"].

Anyone accustomed to freedom of movement finds being laid up in hospitals confining and frustrating. It’s like being tied up and locked into glass prison cells, and they might as well put bars on the windows for all the good they do. The constant coming and going of people living the life you _should_ have drives you to the breaking point and saves you from falling over the edge all at the same time, and the undulating entrapment makes the stay no more pleasurable.

It’s four days before the hospital will even consider releasing him, and then only if he can stay with someone. At that, he hesitates (it occurs to him he has no one to call), but Dave and his impeccable timing knock on the door, saying, “You look perplexed,” by way of greeting.

Next thing Aaron knows, Dave’s telling Dr Jacobs (who doesn’t look old enough to be an _intern_ , never mind a world-class surgeon) he’ll stay over at the apartment, help him get settled and clean things up. It’s a plan to which the doctor is completely amenable, and he tells Aaron he’s free to go, “as long as Agent Rossi is willing to sign you out”.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Aaron tells him after Jacobs leaves. His tone is quiet, measured, eyes fixed on the bed; the expression on his friend’s face is amused, covering up the concern that lurks in his eyes.

“And watch you go stir crazy in here for another week?”

Shrugging just enough for the movement to register, Aaron sighs and tries to run his hand through his hair. He winds up biting back a yell as stitches pull and leaving his arm where it is.

“I’m going to need—”

“This is yours.” Dave interrupts him by holding up the black bag in his hand. “I stole it out of your office.”

For the first time in days—for the first time since Detroit, if he’s honest—he smiles. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes, but it’s something. “Thanks,” he says, and Dave nods.

“You need anything else?”

 _Nothing_. _Everything_. _My son_. _My life_. Too many words hover on his lips, but he bites them back almost viciously. “I don’t think so,” he says finally; the look his friend shoots him says he wasn’t as successful as he thinks.

Still, he leaves, and Aaron throws back the thin hospital blanket, determined to at least get dressed without killing himself. He’s even predominantly successful, until it comes to putting a shirt on without ripping stitches, bandages, or both. He works his way into one of the button-downs, gritting his teeth, and by the time he’s done he’s out of breath and sweating.

Swallowing water to combat it, he grabs his things and steps out of the room, more grateful for civilian clothing and unaided movement than he’d ever thought he could be. The ability to move is almost worth the pain. Dave signs him out, and as they turn away from the desk (if they’d tried to make him leave in a wheelchair, he’d have flashed Dave’s badge and brandished the other agent’s gun), he takes Aaron’s bag.

Raising an eyebrow and trying to protest and not look relieved all at once, the younger man comments, “Did you turn into my valet?”

“My wives told me it was my job to carry bags,” Dave informs him with a straight face, and Aaron chokes down an actual laugh.

“What—you went to Utah while I was unconscious and forged my signature?”

“No, I brought a body-double. _He_ forged your signature.”

While he hears the forced lightness in his friend’s voice and is relatively certain ninety percent of the conversation is the result of the pain meds he’s been ordered to take, he still loses the battle against not laughing, then immediately wraps an arm across his stomach with a groan. Dave grins then, completely insincere.

“Sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

It’s been… _years_ since they had this sort of idiotic conversation—or perhaps it was last Christmas, but right now neither of them are counting—and the normalcy feels good. Admittedly, guilt follows closely, nipping at his heels like the hounds of hell, but he sinks into the passenger seat and tries to shut the door on it, at least for the moment.

On the drive back, Dave briefs him on the case the team caught that week—two days spent in North Carolina with a man snatching unsuspecting single tourists from Raleigh International Airport. In the grander scheme of things, relatively straightforward and as close to clockwork as BAU cases ever got.

 _The team doesn’t feel right_. It hangs in the air but is never said. There had been suggestions for their unit to stand down from active duty until his return, but he’d overridden that faster than the others could blink. Dave was more than qualified as acting Unit Chief; the job didn’t change, and he takes comfort in that. He’s not actually sure what he’d do if it _did_ change.

He has to remind himself of that when they reach his apartment building, and he grabs his bag from the trunk so Dave can grab his own. Or rather, he tries to; Dave beats him to it and tosses him the keys (left in his personal effects and cleared from evidence) instead. The hall seems too long (why did he pick the apartment all the way at the end?), but he sets his jaw and keeps walking. He refuses to be a victim (not again), and if his hand lingers on the doorknob a touch too long, Dave doesn’t comment.

Just inside the door, he pauses. There are things out of place everywhere, and while he knows it’s the work of Crime Scene, it still adds to the feeling of sheer wrongness that threatens to engulf him.

“Bedroom?” Dave asks, holding up the bag he carries.

He knows better than to touch the younger man; the last time he’d walked into his home, he’d been assaulted. It takes more than some hand waving to forget that.

Aaron holds out his hand without turning, but his friend shakes his head. “You keep saying you want to come back to work sooner. Stop overtaxing yourself.” He drops the bag inside the bedroom door anyway.

When he gets back to the front room, Aaron is standing with his palms flat on the counter, gaze fixed on the bloodstain embedded into the carpet.

“Hey.”

Dave tries to keep his tone gentle, but the other man jumps nonetheless, spinning and reaching for a gun he doesn’t have. Seeing Dave, it’s as though he deflates, closing his eyes for just a moment and drawing in a breath that suggests the sharp movement hurt.

“I’m sorry.”

Holding up a hand, the older agent shakes his head. “It’s okay. I get it.”

And he does; they both know it’s not just a platitude. Fifteen years ago, presence grudgingly requested by Army CID, Dave’s team had been called to Fort Benning, Georgia for a consultation. Four murdered men, different ranks, different races, different backgrounds, different promotion grids, and not a lead in sight. Almost a full week later, the Colonel responsible had taken Dave as his hostage, and though the agent was highly skilled in self-defence and hand-to-hand, he had been at a significant disadvantage against a man six inches taller with black ops training.

They’d taken him down without additional casualties, but then the team had returned home, and the Colonel’s brother had tried to blow up Dave’s house. The charge had gone off when he was a mile away, since planning hadn’t accounted for a three-car pileup on the freeway.

The need to forget is not lost on him, so he does what he can. “And you’re going to insist on cleaning this place before you so much as sit down.”

Aaron looks around, eyes tired. “Yeah.”

“Where would you like me to start?” Dark eyes are teasing, offering him a proverbial hand up and an easy way out.

Slowly, he accepts, an exasperated smile playing at the corners of his mouth even if it doesn’t reach his eyes, either. “You’re not my maid, either.”

“Nope. Sorry, I left the marriage certificate at home.”

Smile widening just slightly, Aaron shakes his head. “Pick a spot,” he suggests. They both do.

( _Dies Irae_ )

A week after leaving the hospital, he’s stiff but mobile and going out of his mind. So desperate for distraction is he that he volunteers to work from home, catching up on stacks of paperwork just because it’s something to _do_. If Foyet’s files somehow appear in the mountain that shows up at his apartment, that’s par for the course, and he doesn’t complain. Instead, he memorises them.

Just over a month after discharge, he’s cleared for field duty (he tells himself the fact that the BAU wrote the questions has nothing to do with his passing assessment). In that time, his team has taken at least eight cases and turned down hundreds more. His blood no longer taunts him from the carpet, and he’s stopped hesitating every time he opens his apartment door. If he keeps his hand on his sidearm when he goes home alone, no one’s there to see it. In his head, he knows it’s too early, but he can’t bring himself to do anything about it, because another month off might actually kill him.

The photos are removed from his desk—Haley, Jack, everything that reminds him of them—and he tells himself it’s for their own protection. A couple of prints someone gave him years ago (somewhere in the Swiss mountains, Central Park in autumn, somewhere else he can’t place at all but might well be the Gobi Desert) take their place, and Dave just gives him a _look_ when he sees them. The others either aren’t in his office enough to notice or don’t know what to say.

When they return from his first official case back in the field, he’s… unsettled: childhood memories manifesting as psychosis is not something he needs right now. He’s spent the whole day seeing nothing but failure and taking it out on his team by proxy; it’s not intentional—no more than the “so why hasn’t he killed himself yet?” was intentional—but it happens, and it’s like a spiral on which he’s lost hold of the railings. It occurs to him that he owes Garcia an apology. It occurs to him that he should relearn how to keep his mouth shut.

He spends the flight back not saying much, though, truthfully, there’s not much _to_ say. The looks the rest of the team shoots him aren’t as surreptitious as they think they are, and he doesn’t know how to make small talk with them. Not anymore. All he sees is everything that went _wrong_ —Dr Cippola, dead only because they got there too late; Call’s father, dead because Aaron couldn’t talk a traumatised man down from the ledge. He doesn’t acknowledge the fact that they’ve closed a town’s cold case, that they’ve slaughtered the demons of two men; the failures hover behind him like the Grim Reaper, telling him if he can’t do the _job_ , how does he expect to save his family?

He finds himself avoiding Morgan, too. It’s largely coincidental, but he remembers the younger agent’s concern over Jason Gideon’s return years ago; he doesn’t want to hear the same questions directed at him. He doesn’t even know if he’d have answers if they were. From his office, he sees Morgan stop by Emily’s desk, sees her shake her head and gesture at Aaron’s office. The agent hesitates, nods, grips Emily’s shoulder for a minute, and leaves. Aaron bites back a sigh and returns to his paperwork.

By the time he gets around to leaving his office, the others have already left. Or so he thinks.

“I thought you’d have left by now,” he says as he walks down to the bullpen, and Emily looks up from a folder.

“And leave you to catch a cab? I’m not that heartless.” She leans back to stretch, then shuts the folder and sticks it in a drawer. “You good to go?”

He nods, and as she picks up her things, he adds, “You could have gone home.”

“Nah, it’s no big deal.”

He’s silent on the ride down to the garage—he still doesn’t know what to say—and when they’re at her car, she throws her things in the backseat. He follows suit, but her voice stops him before he can get in.

“Hotch.”

When he looks up, she’s got her forearm braced against the hood of the sedan, looking at him over the top of the car. He tips his head to the side, one eyebrow raised in question.

“You have plans tonight?”

Both eyebrows, this time; it’s a Thursday night on his first day back—how would he have even _made_ plans? She bites back the, “Sorry, dumb question” that pops into her mind, as she doubts he’d appreciate it.

“Care to join me for a drink?” she asks instead. “I was just going to grab one after I dropped you off, but if you feel like it…” It’s an impulsive, out of character offer, and she cuts herself off before she starts babbling.

“I think I’m good,” he says after a moment of surprise.

At least it’s not, “Are you crazy? You’re fired,” so she tries again.

“Come on.” Her tone is gently cajoling. “It won’t kill you.”

He hesitates, unsure of what to make of it and more unsure of what his response should be. “Sure,” he says finally.

“Tony’s?” she suggests, and he nods.

“That works.”

She slides into the driver’s seat, and he shuts the passenger door behind him after another moment. She glances over at him, and whatever she sees, it makes her shake her head and hide a smile.

“I promise I’m not going to spike your drink.”

  
_Feedback is always appreciated._


	3. Chapter 3

Common ground is always an advisable place to begin; the problems arise when you have none. Supervisory Special Agent Emily Prentiss is beginning to believe _her_ problem may be clinical insanity.

In the month since her boss’ release from St Sebastian, she has not seen him outside of work, much less alone. She isn’t entirely sure she wants to. The night she’d gone to see him, the morphine had eventually put him out, and she had slipped away before morning and possibly the rest of the team arrived—neither of them needed questions they couldn’t answer.

She’d offered to pick him up when he’d been cleared to return, yes, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t been surprised when he’d accepted. Even now, with him sitting in her car, she’s not sure why he had. What she _does_ know is that she recognises the precaution, never mind preoccupation. The alarm system makes sense; it’s the files on Foyet spread across his desk that unnerve her, and she’s not sure whether she needs to be worried. She’s less sure if she’s the one who should be with him at the moment, but she’s here and no one else is, so she takes that for what it is and moves on.

Nonetheless, as she pulls into the parking lot of Tony’s, she begins to think this might have been a bad idea. It’s not uncommon for her to join JJ and Garcia here on a weekend—the proprietor knows them all, and more often than not, Reid and Morgan join them. The exclusion of both Hotch and Rossi is not intentional, but neither of them ever happen to be around when plans are made, and none of the rest of the team really knows how to approach with an offer.

Reaching behind her seat to grab her purse, she leaves her suit jacket in the car and kicks herself out. She’s an FBI Agent and the daughter of Ambassador Elizabeth Prentiss. She’s not going to chicken out and drive away for a fabricated emergency (oh god, my house is on fire!) no matter how tempting it is. Shutting her door, she turns to face him and looks at him— _really_ looks at him—as he gets out of her car. She can see the visible effort as he straightens his shoulders, and though he pulls off his tie and undoes the top buttons of his shirt, he still doesn’t look relaxed. She wonders how long it’s been since he’s so much as taken a deep breath.

They walk up through the lot, him on her right, just a touch behind her. He even holds the door open for her, and she tries not to smile as she slips past. It doesn’t surprise her (it fits perfectly into his character).

“Special Agent Hotchner.”

Bob, Tony’s owner (who refuses to tell anyone why he named the bar Tony’s and not Bob’s), greets the taller man with a broad grin as he enunciates his name and comes over to clap him on the shoulder. He’s only about an inch taller than the agent, if that, but he’s built like a brick wall, and Emily’s almost surprised Hotch isn’t knocked to his knees by sheer force.

“I was beginning to think you’d fallen off the face of the earth!”

Hotch grins— _actually_ grins—and shakes his head. “Not quite, Bob. How’s it been?”

“Good business,” Bob admits, gesturing at the rest of the relatively crowded interior, and then he sobers. “How are _you_? I heard about the attack last month on the news.”

“I’m fine,” Hotch says to him. It sounds forced and a little too practised to her ears, but it’s entirely likely she’s the only one who notices. “I’ll probably be stiff in the winter, but I’m fine.”

“Good to hear. I’d hate to have to find new patrons.” Nodding at Emily, he adds, “You two together?”

“Oh, sorry.” Hotch’s expression is awkwardly apologetic. “This is—”

“No, no, I know Emily. Just never see you both here at the same time.” He offers the younger woman a smile (she always gets the feeling he doesn’t know what to make of her), blue eyes appraising. “How you doing?”

“Long day,” she answers, returning the smile, then gestures at the tables along the back wall. “Can we get a table?”

“Of course.” He walks them back, and when they’re seated, asks, “The usual?”

They both nod, and he offers them a sloppy salute before disappearing behind the bar.

“I didn’t know you knew each other.”

They speak at the same time, gesture for the other to continue, and start again simultaneously. Emily groans; she’d had less awkward beginnings to _dates_ when she was a teenager!

Blowing out a breath that might, for him, count as a laugh, Hotch starts over, explaining, “The team used to come in here a lot.” A wry look crosses his face, and he adds, “The only one we could never get to join us was Gideon.”

“Mmm. I come in here every once in awhile with JJ and Garcia,” she admits, unwilling to tell him the others sometimes join them. It never occurred to her that he might have joined the team before until they’d walked in the door, and now she feels almost guilty that they’ve never asked him.

“Bob still have a soft spot for JJ?”

The question startles a laugh out of her, and she nods, dark eyes amused. “Oh yeah.”

The man in question returns with a dark lager for Hotch and an amber bock for Emily (each winds up thinking the other’s drink suits them), then sets chips, salsa, and a basket of fries on the table. Hotch looks over at him, one eyebrow raised, and Bob grins.

“Just ‘cause you haven’t been here in ages.”

He leaves again, and Hotch shakes his head. “Maybe I’m wrong—maybe he has a soft spot for _you_.”

His tone is the same measured, careful one he uses on the job; she realises suddenly how long it’s been since she heard him laugh (or has she ever?) and wonders what it would take to get him to let his guard down. Aloud, she just says, “I’m never certain where he finds this stuff, since I’d swear this place doesn’t have a kitchen.”

“Bob has claimed this place is magic since I met him, and that was back when I started working at the Bureau,” he admits. “My boss quit asking questions, and it seemed a good lead to follow.”

“Well, his salsa is excellent, so I’m perfectly happy if he doesn’t give it to the rest of his patrons,” she says with a grin, snagging a chip.

“Point.”

Whatever he’s about to say is cut off by his phone buzzing against the varnished tabletop, and he actually jumps. She doesn’t think she’s _ever_ seen him startle, no matter the potential cause, and it’s… disconcerting. Incongruous. Something else she can’t quite pin down.

“Expecting the apocalypse?” she asks, her tone intentionally light.

The guilty look that flits through his eyes makes her look at him a little more closely, and then it clicks.

“Garcia would call you.”

The guilty look stays in place this time; it’s the anger that appears merely in passing. “I know.”

“She’s doing her best.” It’s pointed, even though she doesn’t mean for it to be.

He sighs. “I know.”

“But it’s been a month,” she says, nodding in understanding, and he runs a hand through his hair.

Hesitation; then, “Yeah.”

“She’s running every alias and checking… everything. We have his photo out to every law enforcement office in… well, the whole western world. She’ll find him.”

“I know,” he says again, the exhaustion bleeding into his voice like ink against linen. “I know… that just doesn’t always help.”

And it’s like they’re back in his hospital room again, right at square one without a map of the way they’ve already travelled. This time, however, the light makes it impossible for either of them to hide.

“Hotch, you can’t let him win.” He looks up, the movement too sharp, too many edges, and she holds up a hand. They’re off the clock, they’re out of the office, and she knows he knows everything she can possibly tell him; she also knows what it’s like to need a reminder. “We’ll find him, but until we do, you can’t kill yourself over this. You have this job, you have this team, and if it’s not enough, at least it’s _some_ thing. You throw yourself away tomorrow and he wins even if we catch him next week. You know this.”

His expression is unreadable, and for the second time that night she’s almost waiting for him to fire her. Already she’s crossed a score of lines she’d never even been aware existed until five minutes ago, so she barrels on. If he actually _does_ fire her, she wants it to mean something.

“The Marshals told us they’d flag practically everyone who so much as asks about either Haley or Jack’s history. We've pulled every contact in law enforcement and then some, so if he shows up on the grid, we'll know, and I don’t think Garcia’s been out of the office for more than three consecutive hours since this happened. You’ll get your family back. It might not be tonight and it might not be next week, but you’ll get them back.”

Sighing again, he reaches up to rub his temples, picking up his beer in his free hand. When he speaks, his voice is still low (she counts it a plus that he neither begins shouting nor gets up and walks out), laced with a bitterness that makes her heart hurt. “Did you know I tried to see Jack at least once a week? I couldn’t always make it, but… how do you explain _this_ to a child?”

“You don’t,” she says flatly. “You know what my mother does—we moved more in my first… six, seven years than most people move in a lifetime. She tried explaining it, but I didn’t get it; all I could do was resent it.”

It’s her turn to sigh, and she takes a sip of her own drink before repeating, “You _don’t_ explain this sort of thing to a child and expect them to understand why. What, maybe, but almost never why.” She looks up, meeting his eyes and wondering when the shadows underneath them got so deep. “That comes later. It _always_ comes later.”

His gaze holds hers, searching her eyes for answers to _questions_ she doesn’t even know, but she doesn’t flinch away. “I hope you’re right,” he admits softly. “I don’t even know what’s worse: him not remembering me, or him hating me because he thinks I left.”

She tips her head just slightly, watching him. It makes sense, falls in line with his comments the night she’d been in the hospital.

“Jack’s an impressively smart kid,” she tells him after a moment, “which is no surprise, since he’s _your_ son. He’ll get it.” She refuses to let the _I hope_ run through her mind, because she knows he’ll see it in her eyes if she does.

Blowing out a breath, he leans back in his chair, gaze on a black-and-white photo hanging on the wall behind her. “Thanks.” Like any good parent, having someone compliment his child is enough to make him smile, and the thought, ‘How could she leave him?’ flits through her mind. It’s unexpected enough to surprise her, and she swats it away like a fly. She has no business thinking things like that.

“Can I ask you a question?”

She jumps slightly as he breaks into her thoughts, and suddenly she’s glad for the low lighting that hides her blush. “I think you just did.”

He huffs out that same sort of half-laugh, then pauses, fingering the label on the bottle. “Why did you come by that night?”

The question is intentionally vague, but she freezes, not needing to ask him what he means. For a moment she’s torn between telling the truth and lying, even if the rational part of her mind knows he’d see right through the latter, and she takes a sip of her beer to buy time. Unfortunately, drinking the whole bottle in one go, while it _would_ help her stall, would look a little suspicious.

“I…” She trails off, unsure of how to answer, and starts again. “You spend a lot of time on this job watching the backs of the people you work with,” she says finally, staring at the table and fiddling with the clasp of her watch. “It doesn’t matter what they tell you in the Academy or what you read in the books; nothing prepares you to become a victim, nothing prepares you to see someone you _know_ become a victim, and it never gets easier.”

Again, she stops, aware that she hasn’t really answered his question, and he just waits; she can feel his gaze trained on her. “Were you ever told about Topeka?”

Sparing a glance up, she sees him shake his head. “We had a case there about three or four years ago, but I don’t think that’s what you mean.”

Once, she nods. “I was working out of the office in Kansas City my third year with the Bureau. There was… a hostage situation in Topeka, and my partner was the one talking down the unsub. He got him to release one of the hostages, but he had to be the one to receive her. When the girl was five feet away, the unsub shot my partner in the throat through the window.”

Shrugging one shoulder, she takes another sip of her drink; her own throat is dry. “My point is that you don’t get used it, watching people die, much less people you care about. I walked into your apartment, and while the unlocked door wasn’t a good sign, it didn’t occur to me you might not be alive until I saw the blood on the floor. Then my first thought was I’d find you stuffed into the closet or something. I’m not sure if was better or worse that it took us so long to track you down.”

The condensation on the bottle is making the label peel away, and she plays with the edges as the paper comes away in tiny pieces in her fingers. “I came by to see you because I kept thinking you were dead,” she explains softly. “The _how_ got worse each time.”

He nods slowly; it makes more sense than her stopping by randomly. “I’m sorry.” _About your partner_. _That you had to be the one to come looking for me_. _That it wouldn’t leave you alone_.

He says none of that, but she hears it anyway in the tone of his voice. “Thanks.”

( _Dies Irae_ )

They slip out of Tony’s within an hour of their arrival, and she quietly insists on paying for his drink. When he protests, she just shrugs.

“Consider it a welcome back.”

As he had to the greetings that morning, he seems to back away from that, nodding with a soft, “Thank you, then,” that she has a hard time hearing. She blames it on the noise of the bar.

The drive back to his place—it’s just a few minutes—is relatively silent, and she lets the radio fill it. He doesn’t stare at it in confusion when it doesn’t play English music, either, which is when she remembers he speaks Italian and files that away for later. When she pulls into his lot, she parks instead of pulling up to the doors, ignoring his quizzical look.

“Emily?” he asks as she steps out.

“I’ll walk you up,” she explains, and he shakes his head.

“You don’t have to.”

“Of course I don’t,” she replies, sticking her keys and her wallet (an odd habit, but one that’s saved her before) in her pocket, and he stops arguing.

They don’t say much on the way up (this is a pattern, she thinks), and she falls into step with him despite his height advantage. She finds herself watching his movement out of the corner of her eye, looking for stiffness or any indication of pain, but either he really is fine or he’s just faking it well, because she finds none.

At his door, he slips the key in and turns the knob, reaching in to flip on the light, and she wonders if she imagined the momentary hesitation there.

“You didn’t have to walk me up here, you know,” he tells her again as he goes to reprogram the security system.

“I know.” Reaching for the door, she swings it shut, careful not to slam it, and turns back to face him. “So do you think Call’s going be okay?” It’s a loaded question, but she leaves it open-ended intentionally. It’s also, ironically, the first time they’ve brought the day’s case up, and she wonders how many more lines she’ll cross before she leaves.

He doesn’t look at her. “I don’t know.”

“Well, he got his answers,” she observes, tone carefully neutral. “Killed the man who haunted him.”

“Then what else is there?”

He still won’t look at her, staring off to the side at something she’s pretty sure isn’t there as the conversation stops being about Call. She wishes they weren’t speaking in riddles, wonders why they’ve started now after all that’s already been said that evening, but she’s up on her quota of bravery for the night and isn’t entirely sure how to call him on it.

“Years of torture.” Her tone is carefully matter-of-fact; he doesn’t appreciate sugar-coating any more than she does.

There’s a long pause, and then he meets her eyes. “Think he’ll get over that?”

“How could he?” _He doesn’t have to_. You _don’t have to_. She takes a breath and doesn’t say any of that, either. “But at least he doesn’t have to feel like he’s alone anymore.”

Again, he looks away, then back at her. “He doesn’t have anyone.”

 _Yes, you do_. It’s her turn to look away before he can read that, and her eyes flicker back to him. “He has Tommy.” A beat; then, “He’s not alone.”

Slowly, he looks back down at the floor and gives the most minute of nods. She wants to reach out, hug him, do something, but she can’t, so she steps away. “Get some sleep.”

He looks up quickly, as though he’s forgotten she’s there in the split second of silence; she wonders where he went. “You, too.”

He sees her out, and she’s halfway down the hall before she turns around and walks back to the door.

“Hey, Hotch?” she asks as she knocks.

The chain rattles as he slides it back, and his expression is quizzical. Before he can ask if she left something there or she can lose her nerve, she looks him in the eye and says, “You’re not alone, either, you know?” He freezes like a deer in headlights; she doesn’t let herself wonder if he’s angry, offended, cornered. Instead, she adds softly, “You have us, and _we_ need you, even if you don’t think so.”

Still, he says nothing; then, “Emily, I—”

“Good night, Hotch,” she says, just as softly.

She doesn’t expect a response—she just doesn’t want him to step in front of an unsub’s bullet while he’s waiting for the Reaper—and she slips back down the hall and through the door to the stairwell before he even manages to move from his doorway.

  
 _Feedback is always appreciated._


	4. Chapter 4

_For the great day of his wrath has come; and who shall be able to stand?_  
\--Revelation 6:17

Time, they say, is relative, and it is something he has learned in his years with the Bureau. When you’re waiting for your perp to fire or release the detonator or jump off the ledge of a building, you’re surrounded by rush and adrenaline and thinly veiled panic, and yet there are moments in which you see everything in slow motion. When someone has a gun to your throat, your focus narrows to the flutter of your pulse against the muzzle, and each heartbeat seems far too long. When you’re waiting for a blow to land, time becomes irrelevant as you watch it move irreversibly closer. Time is indeed relative.

Eight months pass after his discharge from St Sebastian, and the months feel like years, perhaps even decades. They work the cases as they come, and if he’s a little more relentless in his pursuit of absolute justice, no one comments. He makes a conscious effort not to lash out at his team the way he did in Kentucky, so no one has _reason_ to comment. This doesn’t, however, stop them all from finding ways to tell him they’ll get Foyet, some of which are more obvious than others. He’s torn between being grateful and falling apart.

He spends his free time searching every database and news feed in the English-speaking world, and what’s not available in either Italian or German he finds in translation. Jack’s birthday comes and goes—he’s more grateful than words can express to Sam Kassmeyer for the video, but at the same time it’s like a reminder of what he doesn’t (can’t) have. It’s like lancing a festering wound, only this one won’t heal. It rains that day; he finds that fitting, and at the same time ironic.

Then the Bureau starts to run out of funds for his protection detail, and he can’t bring himself to be surprised. He starts changing the security code on his alarm system once a week, carrying both his backups, and goes back to sparring as often as he can. He refuses to be caught off-guard again.

When they _actually_ run out of money, it never occurs to him to tell anyone about it. His team finds out anyway, and they’re livid the Bureau can’t come up with the funds to protect one of its own. They say none of this to his face, but he hears it from Dave—it’s hard not to, since the other agent practically lives on his couch for the first week.

He does everything in his power to convince his friend to go back home, but Dave just gives him that patented inscrutable look, shakes his head, and ignores him until he gives in. At the end of that week, he finally leaves, but Morgan shows up less than an hour later with an overnight bag in hand and a determined look on his face.

Aaron tells him to go home, that he doesn’t need them babysitting him. Morgan just _looks_ at him (he’s been taking lessons from Dave, Aaron thinks) and doesn’t move.

“Not happening, Hotch. You can let me in, or I can sit outside your door. Up to you.”

“The Bureau won’t pay you overtime for this.”

His voice is tired, but level, and he means it as a warning; he doesn’t succeed (he wonders when he started shoving them all away). Hurt and anger in roughly equal proportions flash through the younger man’s eyes, and for a moment Aaron thinks Morgan might actually hit him. He can’t say he’d blame him if he did.

“None of us _want_ overtime,” Morgan says finally, voice carefully level and eyes too sharp. “We’re not doing this because we _have_ to, Aaron, and if you think for a moment we are, I’m not sure what team you’ve been working with all these years.” He pauses, then adds, “Family looks out for each other. You’ve told me that.”

He can count on one hand the number of times his agent has used his given name since they started working together. Nodding, albeit grudgingly, Aaron lets him in.

After that, his team starts rotating shifts, and the only one who doesn’t show is Reid, because he’s still off his feet. “Though I could probably talk Foyet to death,” he quips one day, “assuming he’s not a fan of astrophysics or medieval literature.”

They’re in briefing, and Morgan shakes his head. “Assuming the man’s never read a set of encyclopaedias, I’m pretty sure you wouldn't be that limited.”

Even Aaron smiles at that.

( _Dies Irae_ )

Almost exactly seven months after his return to field duty, Emily comes up to his office to tell him the team is meeting at Tony’s that evening; she adds that he might want to invite Rossi. He agrees without really hearing to what, specifically, he’s agreeing, and not until she’s left and he’s paused to down more coffee does he realise what she said.

He ends the evening by kissing his agent. He hits himself as he leaves.

The next morning, Emily makes a beeline for his office, and he wonders what it would look like if he slammed the door and locked it. He can’t even tell her he was drunk.

She knocks on the door, dark eyes confused and maybe a little wary. “Hey.”

Looking up from the report of yesterday’s case and feigning nonchalance, he nods at her. “Did you need something?”

As rapidly as if someone threw a switch, her expression loses its wariness and turns furious. She shuts the door.

“ ‘Do I need something’??” she asks incredulously, and he resists the urge to flinch. At least she has the grace to keep her voice down.

Putting the pen down, he sighs. “Emily—”

She doesn’t let him finish, eyes flashing. “If you apologise or tell me it was a mistake, I’m going to throw you out the window, hierarchy be damned,” she snaps. “ _You_ kissed _me_.”

He stares at her. “I know. I was going to say that perhaps the office is not the best place to have this conversation.”

Blink. “Oh.”

“Can we do this after we get done for the day?”

After a moment, she nods and turns to leave, her lips still pressed too tightly together. He wants to call her back, if only to tell her it wasn’t a mistake, but the words are foreign on his tongue, and he doesn’t know how to pronounce them.

They never get a chance to have the conversation.

An hour into the day, just as they’re sitting down to their usual round table, Garcia comes bursting in, almost running into the back of Reid’s chair in her haste.

“Garcia?”

There’s concern in Morgan’s voice, evident not just in his use of her name, and no one blames him. She looks like she hasn’t slept in months (it’s entirely possible she hasn’t), she’s out of breath, and she might well have tripped over her desk trying to get there.

“I found him,” she says finally. “I found Foyet.”

The room freezes. No one dares look at him.

“He’s in Albuquerque—police flagged him when they were sweeping a motel—and there’s a warrant out for his arrest. I think he kidnapped a woman this morning.”

Morgan’s gaze locks on her like a compass needle on north. “That’s not his MO.”

Holding up her hands, she shakes her head. “I don’t know. They got a description that matches Foyet, and—”

The ringing of Aaron’s phone interrupts her, and he pulls it off his belt to silence it. Before Garcia can even open her mouth to continue, the phone rings again, so he sighs and answers it, expecting something brief.

“Hotchner.”

“SSA Aaron Hotchner?”

All the colour drains from his face. The voice on the other end is a veneer of charisma and confidence over panic. He knows because he’s used the same voice himself.

“Yes.”

“This is Marshall Mann; I’m with the US Marshals. Your wife and son were transferred to my partner and myself three months ago.” There’s the briefest of pauses, and Aaron doesn’t dare to breathe: he can hear the “but” dangling there like a knife on fraying thread. “We have reason to believe George Foyet has Haley. She went missing this morning.”

Had he been standing up, he’d have lost his legs, and as it is he grips the edge of the table with his free hand until his knuckles turn white. It doesn’t occur to him to correct the Marshal’s use of present tense; all he knows is this wasn’t how he expected his morning to go. Somewhere in the back of his mind, it registers that the others are staring at him, and he wonders if he looks as ill as he feels.

“What about my son.”

It’s a statement, not a question, and Mann sounds relieved. “He’s at a safehouse with three of our people.”

The vise around his heart loosens a fraction. “Protocol dictates—”

“I know. By request of Agent Kassmeyer, our boss is making an exception.” There’s a pause, and then he clarifies, “Their current cover is of no use right now. The Albuquerque Field Office is making your arrangements as we speak.”

“We’re on our way.”

He doesn’t know how he can possibly sound so calm. He hangs up the phone, opens his mouth to speak, and can’t. Instead, he closes his eyes, taking a breath.

“Aaron?”

He and Dave almost never use first names on the job—it’s easier to keep track that way—and it makes him wonder how bad he looks. It’s the same tone Dave used the first time he got back to his apartment; at least this time it doesn’t make him jump.

“The Marshals think he has Haley,” he says. Speaking the words aloud make them seem so much more real; his breath catches in his throat. “We’re going to Albuquerque,” he continues, hoping he doesn’t sound as strangled to them as he sounds to himself. “Wheels up in ten. I’ll call Strauss.”

( _Dies Irae_ )

The plane ride is edgy, uptight. Even the pilot seems high on adrenaline. They go over the profile because it’s something to do, and there’s little doubt in anyone’s mind that whatever Foyet’s doing, it’s for Aaron. They keep shooting sidelong glances at him like they’re afraid he’ll shatter into a million little pieces (it’s like the plane ride back from Louisville, he thinks); he doesn’t know how to tell them he won’t. He’s well past the point of panicking, an icy wrath pulling him away from subjective impulse and narrowing into an objective cold.

Midway through the flight, Garcia calls and says she hasn’t found Foyet, but she _can_ tell them where not to look. They write it all down and tell her to talk to the field office and the Marshals. She pauses like she’s going to say something else, then gives a minute shake of her head and hangs up.

Three Marshals are waiting for them on the tarmac, along with two agents from the Albuquerque field office. He introduces his team on autopilot, then turns to Mann. They’re roughly at eye-level with one another, and the Marshal refuses to step down in a tacit acknowledgement of fault. He goes up a point in Aaron’s book for that.

“How did he find them?”

Mann takes a breath, but it’s his partner who answers. The blonde is steady and forthright, he notes somewhere in the back of his mind, and he’d be impressed by her if he had half a mind to think about that.

“We don’t know that yet,” Mary Shannon answers. “Because of the status of this case, we’ve had her checking in with us several times a day. She called us this morning before she left for work around 0600h. She should have let us know when she got to her office, and she missed the check.”

“We’ve pulled tapes from her commute route,” Mann continues, picking up for her, “and we’ve got footage confirming Foyet took her. The cameras at the gas station caught a clear shot of his face.”

Dave, standing at Aaron’s shoulder, glances at him. “So either he didn’t know where the cameras were—”

“Or he wanted us to know it’s him,” Aaron agrees.

“We also found this at the station—on the driver’s seat of her car.”

Mann holds out an evidence bag with a sheet of paper in it, and Aaron bites down hard on the inside of his cheek. It’s the missing sheet of paper from his address book.

“You recognise it?”

“He took it from my address book the night he attacked me.”

As if on cue, his phone rings; though he should know better, he answers it without thinking. “Hotchner.”

“Hello, Aaron.”

Every muscle in his body tightens reflexively in remembered pain.

“What have you done with Haley?” he demands as he spins to face Dave and gestures at his phone. Mouthing “Foyet” is unnecessary, but he does it anyway as the older agent calls Garcia and tells her to trace a call to Aaron’s phone.

“Oh, she and I are getting acquainted.”

Foyet’s voice is smooth and confident; he’s long since stopped being the shaken victim of the Reaper, but now there’s an element of unmitigated glee in his voice that makes Aaron want to rip his throat out.

“Your wife—I’m sorry, _ex_ -wife—is a _very_ lovely woman. I’ve quite enjoyed her company.”

His free hand tightens into a fist, but he just nods as Dave gestures for him to keep Foyet talking. “Let me talk to her.”

It is a demand made in a tone that brooks no argument, and even the Reaper gives in to it. There’s silence on the other end of the line, then some shuffling, and then he hears a sobbing breath.

“Haley?” He fights to keep his tone neutral; he has no idea if he succeeds.

“Aaron.” She breathes his name in a voice that barely constitutes a whisper, and his heart contracts as he tries not to wonder what Foyet’s done to her. It's only been hours, but he better than anyone knows that hours with George Foyet can feel like days. “I’m sorry,” she tells him; he shakes his head even if she can’t see him. “It’s a trap,” she says. “Don’t come; he’ll—”

And there’s the harsh _thwack_ of skin on skin, accompanied by a muffled scream and a banging noise in his ear that almost makes him drop the phone. There’s scrambling, and he realises the sound was the phone hitting the floor.

“It’s too bad they got Jack away from me,” Foyet says after a moment, just slightly out of breath, and there’s a flash of pride for Aaron.

He’d made sure Haley had the basics of self-defence back when they’d first started dating, in the hopes that she’d be better able to fight for herself if it ever came to that. Knowing it’s something helps.

“We could have had some real fun if he was here to watch his mother scream.”

The line goes dead, and the Unit Chief grits his teeth before shoving his phone back onto his belt. Dave frowns, nods, and puts his phone on speaker.

“The signal was blocked,” Garcia explains, sounding just a touch frantic. “It was being rerouted through about six different towers, but I was able to narrow it down to the northwest part of Albuquerque in a thirty-mile radius from Paradise Hills.”

“That’s a huge range,” Shannon says in exasperation.

“It’s the best I can do.”

Garcia hangs up, and the Marshal grimaces. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

Holding up a hand, Dave stops her. “We know.” He turns to the Special Agent in Charge of the Albuquerque office, Matthew Forsyth. “We’d like to work out of your office, if we can, develop a plan.” To the head of the Marshals office—McQueen?—he adds, “And if you can spare your Marshals, any input they can give us would be useful.”

There’s no argument.

  
 _Feedback is always appreciated._


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Spoilers: 5x03 ["Reckoner"]  
> Additional Warnings: violence

At the Albuquerque office, Agents Forsyth and Aberdene sit in with them. Morgan and Emily step out to coordinate with Bomb Squad and HRT; they are none of them assuming finding Haley will be simple, and they’re not so complacent as to put it past Foyet to rig the location to blow.

Shannon and Marshall read them in to Haley and Jack’s cover: Helen Karr, widowed mother of five-year-old Josh (“widowed” makes Aaron flinch), employed at a publishing house in the city. It’s their third move, in an attempt to keep them even further off the grid, with two changes in their supervising Marshals. Kassmeyer, who's running point in DC, has been the only constant.

Finally, when they’ve exhausted every place Haley could have been spotted (it takes them less than an hour to railroad through the information) and found nothing on Foyet, they start hashing out a profile.

“He’ll be somewhere relatively out of the way and nondescript,” Dave begins, gesturing at the photos of Foyet’s known homes. The Albuquerque agents had already had the case boarded and outlined, and Aaron noted JJ thanking the agents on the way in.

“Everything will be in good condition, but not showy; if he has a car, it’ll show the same signs.”

The profile has changed, in some ways; he’s changed his methodology and has a new target. He’s not killing indiscriminately anymore; he’s after Aaron.

“The tokens he leaves at each crime scene are a way of manipulating law enforcement, a measure of power,” Reid adds. “He did this with Shaunessey; he’s tried to do this with Hotch.”

And some things haven’t changed at all.

“He’ll be relatively new to the area,” Aaron explains, “with few friends or acquaintances if he has any at all. He’s extremely disciplined, and right now his goal is to keep a low profile until he wants us to find him.”

“He’s called various authorities at least twice since the kidnapping,” Shannon points out. “I think he’s at that point now.”

“Not necessarily.” It’s Rossi who answers. “He wants us to know beyond reasonable doubt that he’s the one we’re looking for, but he’s still making it hard to actually find him. It’s part of his control method, his game, like dangling a carrot in front of a horse.”

“He’s also demonstrated a preference for his younger, female victims,” Aaron continues, with a level of detachment worthy of an Oscar—or perhaps psychiatric evaluation. “He prefers knives, using the stabbing as a substitute for penetration, and while Haley isn’t in the adolescent bracket to which hebophilia applies, the personalisation may sharpen his focus.”

He doesn’t miss the look Dave shoots him; he simply ignores it, because thinking about it might be the end. Before anyone can comment further, Morgan walks into the conference room with Emily on his heels.

He types several passwords into one of their laptops, then pulls up the video feed, saying, “Talk to me, Garcia.

“I started checking the traffic cams on highway 25,” she begins, speaking too fast in the manner she has when she’s either nervous or excited. In this case, it’s probably both. “The gas station showed him heading north, and I picked him up on the turnoff to interstate 423, which narrows down your search area.”

Agent Forsyth begins pulling up a digital map of the area, and Garcia continues without seeming to take a breath.

“I also took a recording of his call to Hotch to analyse the background noise.” She hits a few keys and cues up an audio track. When she hits play, there’s a screaming bugle that makes the room jump.

“What _is_ that?” Aberdene looks confused and more than a little wary.

“It’s a stallion’s bugle,” Reid answers matter-of-factly. “Garcia, are there any—”

“I’m way ahead of you, genius boy,” she says pertly, and everyone not regularly exposed to her humour stares at the screen in surprise. “I checked the records, and there are three ranches keeping horses near Paradise Hills; only one of them has breeding stallions on the grounds, and it’s practically on top of Indian Petroglyph State Park. And—” She pokes around on a map and zooms in on a spot. “—to sweeten the deal, there was property for sale less than a mile away from this ranch. It went off the market last month to a Richard Gregson. _He_ doesn’t even exist in human records before May of this year.”

“You are brilliant, baby girl,” Morgan tells her (and now everyone is staring at him, but he’s used to this). “Can you get us a layout of this property?”

“You should already have it,” she says. “Go get ‘em.”

She cuts the connection, and Morgan pulls up a map and a blueprint side by side on the screen hanging on the wall. Entrances, exits, weak points, strong points, basement, attic; they find everything, come up with a plan, a backup plan, and a contingency for the backup. It takes them perhaps two hours, slamming through the information in groups, and though Aaron’s itching to grab a car and simply _drive_ , he knows better than to send people in blind. So he finds every loophole, and he ties it shut. Dave and Morgan say they need to take him alive. He doesn’t argue; if anyone kills Foyet, he almost hopes it’s himself.

“Hotch.”

He looks up, excuses himself to Agent Forsyth, and follows Dave into the hall. “What is it?”

Dave doesn’t say anything, gesturing instead for the younger man to follow. He doesn’t stop until they reach an empty conference room further down the hall, and he shuts the door once Aaron enters. As though he’s bracing himself, Dave squares his shoulders and meets his friend’s puzzled eyes.

“I’ll be coordinating at the gates,” he says. Aaron nods, not understanding why this is such a monumental decision. Then Dave continues, “You’re staying with me.”

Everything flashes white-hot as he understands now why the door is shut, why there’s an apology in the other man’s eyes.

“You have no right—”

“I have every right, Aaron,” he says sharply. “Were this anyone else—what if it was Derek’s sister? Would you even _consider_ letting him go in with the unit?”

“This is different!”

“Bullshit.” Dark eyes meet, determination head-to-head with desperation. “You go in and, god forbid, you have to choose between your agents and the mother of your child. _What will you do_?”

Aaron slams a clenched fist onto the table. “I’m not a green agent anymore, Dave!”

“No, Aaron, you’re human,” he shoots back. “You have nothing to prove and nothing to gain by going in!”

“It’s been _eight months_!”

“You think I don’t know that? Is it worth risking everyone’s life when everything you’ll see is personal?”

Flinching away from that as if he’s been physically struck, Aaron just shakes his head. “I have to.”

“No.” Dave steps in front of him, getting into his personal space. “No, you don’t.”

“Goddammit, Dave, I’ve failed her enough!” He’s just shy of shouting, and for the first time since George Foyet entered their lives, the self-loathing reads in his eyes like a billboard in Times Square. “I got her into this mess! You think it’s not my responsibility to get her out of it??”

His voice cracks on the last word, and he swallows hard; the older man says absolutely nothing for a long moment, the expression on his face unreadable. Aaron can’t tell if he’s made his point or not, and then Dave is gripping his shoulders tight enough to bruise.

“Don’t you _ever_ let me hear you say that again,” he declares, tone low and vehement, and it’s enough to throw his former protégé off-balance. Dave deals with things like he did in a Boston alley—with frank, off-colour humour and a proverbial slap to the back of the head—not with anger and fear in his eyes and tightening his fingers.

“You want to blame someone, you blame Foyet! _He_ attacked _you_. _He_ took Haley. _He_ killed almost half a hundred people!”

His grip loosens just slightly, and the blood rushes back into the other man’s hands. “You remember what I told you in Boston?”

Slowly, Aaron nods. Crazy minds think alike.

“This is _not_ about you.” The words are repeated, each enunciated like he’s trying to explain linear algebra to a six-year-old. “Do you blame Derek for getting you stabbed?”

The question throws him, and it takes him a moment to adjust; when he does, his response is indignant. “Of course not! He didn’t _hand_ his credentials to Foyet.”

“Precisely my point.”

There’s a moment—just a moment—in which it’s impossible to tell if Aaron’s going to break down or try to break Dave’s nose, and then he slumps. Slowly, slowly, Dave lets go, and the younger agent brings a hand up, pinching the bridge of his nose and blowing out a breath.

“You can hate me all you like, but you will stay with me,” Dave says, repeating his initial words, “or I swear I’ll throw you in a cell myself until we get back.”

“You would, too.” He sounds exhausted, like he’s walked to hell and back and come home to the apocalypse. “All right. You’re right.”

Nodding, his friend reaches out and lays a hand on his arm for a moment. “Come on. Let’s go get him.”

( _Dies Irae_ )

Perhaps five miles from Indian Petroglyph State Park, there’s a small one-story home. It’s simple, clean, understated (exactly as they’d predicted) and the unit pulls to a stop behind a stand of trees that provide convenient cover. Four snipers slip away to cover each corner of the property, swinging into the upper branches of the trees without so much as rustling the leaves. In the van, they start scanning for heat sources, finding two at the back of house; both seem unaware that anything is amiss. Bomb squad scans the house and the grounds with equipment almost no one except Morgan recognises, much less knows how to use. The Bureau may have run short on funds for Aaron’s protection, but if that means they can storm George Foyet like his place is a terrorist cell, he’ll take the concession.

After nearly twenty minutes, they give the clear.

Morgan and Emily follow the HRT unit when Dave gives the go order, and Reid and JJ split around the back with the Marshals and the Albuquerque agents. The wind filters through the trees and the grass, and a horse whinnies somewhere in the distance. There’s no other sound present: the agents are silent, the grass muffling their footsteps; the movement of the cameras makes both agents watching the feed dizzy. There’s a pause; the HRT commander and Agent Forsyth reach the front and back doors respectively within seconds of each other, and Dave takes a breath.

“Go.”

The doors aren’t even left on their hinges.

Through the lens of the camera, they can see Foyet spin around, pulling Haley up and around with him like a human shield. Blood trails down the right side of her face and stains her clothing in various places; a bruise flowers across her left cheekbone. Her shirt is torn and bloody over the left side of her abdomen; it doesn’t take a genius to guess she’s been stabbed—at least three times, at that, if the careful bandaging is any indication. That care is perhaps the most terrifying thing of all: the dressings are meticulous, and the message is clear: she doesn’t die until Aaron Hotchner can bear witness. It’s no surprise she’s halfway to unconscious. Foyet places the edge of the bloody blade against her throat.

None of the snipers have a clean shot.

“Agent Morgan,” Foyet says softly. “Hello, Derek.”

Morgan doesn’t so much as blink; he carries an FBI-issue Remington, his service weapon tucked into its holster, and the muzzle of the rifle remains trained on Foyet, right at the heart. If it fazes the Reaper, he doesn’t give any indication.

“Tell me, where’s your boss?”

“Go to hell,” he answers just as quietly, and Foyet laughs, a gleeful, maniacal sound that has Aaron gritting his teeth and praying to a God he stopped talking to years ago.

“Hit a nerve, did I?” The Reaper grins and presses the knife harder into Haley’s skin, drawing blood. “I know you can hear me, Aaron,” he says, and there’s a frightening, almost seductive quality to his voice that’s nauseating. “Aren’t you planning to come in and save your wife? Or does she not matter now that you’re not married?”

Pressing shaking hands flat against his knees, Aaron swallows down bile and struggles to resist the urge to walk in the door and carve Foyet’s heart out with whatever he can find—a toothpick, if necessary. As though he doesn’t trust his will, Dave reaches over and lays a hand on his shoulder, a token gesture to keep him in place. It’s probably a good thing he does.

“You see, Aaron,” Foyet continues, “the thing with men like us is that we don’t think the world is right when everything goes well.”

He trails the tip of the blade down Haley’s cheek, just enough to break the skin and cause pain, but not enough to be life-threatening.

“There has to be pain to make things right, to make them balance.”

The blade moves to her collarbones now, the pain bringing her back to a consciousness she’d much rather she didn’t have. Foyet shifts his weight, Haley moving with him, and that’s when they see Aaron’s name has been carved into the palm of her hand. Dave’s grip tightens, and it takes more willpower than Aaron knew he possessed to keep from thundering in and ripping Foyet to shreds.

“The world needs a little bit of pain—it’s even fun, if you do it right,” he continues, moving to her other cheek. The thin red lines frame her face like a macabre mask, and there’s a gleam in his eyes that would have made even Edgar Allen Poe run for the hills. “It’s better than sex.”

The implications are wide open, and when Aaron starts to rise to his feet, Dave tightens his grip further; he hasn’t let go, and for good reason, though the likelihood of both his fingers and Aaron’s shoulder bruising are high. “Don’t take the bait, Aaron,” he says quietly, covering the mic with his free hand and never taking his eyes off the screen.

“I don’t know how you divorced her.” Foyet skims the blade across her shoulder, slitting fabric and skin alike as his hand catches in limp blonde hair, smudging dirt and drying blood. “Oh, that’s right; she divorced _you_.”

Whatever he’s going to say next never comes, and it’s Haley who tips the scales. Aaron sees it the moment before it’s about to happen, and all he manages is a desperate “No” that he knows will never register in time. She cracks her head backward, the back of her skull connecting with Foyet’s jaw, and drops like a rock; the blade slices through tissue and muscle from elbow to shoulder, and she screams even as she struggles to throw herself out of the way. Foyet, furious and caught off guard, raises the knife and tries to grab her, but Morgan plants a twelve-gauge round in his right shoulder, a sniper slams a .308 into his left kneecap through the window, and one of the HRT members grabs him from behind, gripping him right over the shotgun wound in his shoulder and forcing him to drop the knife.

Aaron is out of the van before Foyet hits the floor, and Dave lets him go, pausing only to call a clear, request two ambulances, and lock the door before he follows. In the back room, Aaron ignores Foyet entirely, kneeling next to Haley a moment before she grabs him and holds on. Her grip lacks anything resembling force, and he bites back the urge to pick up the knife and return the favour to the Reaper.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly, right in her ear. “I’m so sorry. It’s over.”

“Jack?” she whispers.

Shannon, standing just behind Haley, gives him a minute nod as she points to her phone and steps away.

“He’s fine,” he tells her. “The Marshals have him.”

“Thank God,” she murmurs as the tears start again, and he holds onto her for just a minute.

When he pulls away, she resists, but he stops her. “Easy. I need to get that arm to stop bleeding.” He pulls his suit jacket off, wrapping it around her upper arm; it won’t do much, and it’s not the best option, but it’ll hold until the EMTs arrive.

When they do, they take Haley first, and Dave waves him off, indicating he should go with her. He nods, pausing just long enough to go around back where they’ve restrained Foyet. Agents Forsyth and Aberdene look entirely too ready to put another bullet in him—his head, this time—and Aaron stops just outside his range.

He meets Foyet’s gaze and holds it as he tells the agents, “I want him shackled and under twenty-four hour armed guard. No exceptions. I don’t care if he has a heart attack; the doctor _comes to him_.”

Hatred burns in Foyet’s eyes, and though he starts on again about pain and commonality, Aaron turns on his heel and walks away. It’s over.

 

 _The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness._  
\--Victor Hugo

  
 _Feedback is always appreciated._


	6. Epilogue

_Normal fear protects us; abnormal fear paralyses us. Normal fear motivates us to improve our individual and collective welfare; abnormal fear constantly poisons and distorts our inner lives. Our problem is not to be rid of fear but, rather, to harness and master it._  
\--Martin Luther King, Jr.

It’s almost a full month before Aaron Hotchner returns to work.

After months of separation, Jack refuses to so much as let his father out of his sight, and Strauss calls to tell Aaron that she’ll personally fire him if he so much as appeared on Academy property in the next three weeks. “Agent Morgan can handle the team for a month,” she declares in a tone that leaves no room for argument. He doesn’t protest.

Haley spends three days in the hospital; doctors explain she’s a little dehydrated and has suffered enough blood loss to merit a few days’ stay, patch her back up, and keep her for both physical and psychological evaluation. He asks at one point if she’d consider seeing a psychologist for a little while, trying not to sound either hesitant or patronising, and he’s stunned when she says yes instead of throwing a tray at him. The team stops by at least once, and Aaron himself would have stayed there for all three days had she not kicked him out for Jack’s sake.

It’s blackmail, and he tells her as much; she just smiles and waves him out.

When she’s finally discharged, he drives her home, sees the hesitation before she walks into the house. It had been agreed beforehand that Jack staying with Aaron wouldn’t be a bad idea, so he drops off her things and makes to leave her in peace. She stops him at the door and hesitantly asks him if he’d stay.

He freezes on the spot, trying not to let the confusion bleed into his expression, and she quietly admits that the house feels too big, too empty. She’d been jumping at shadows in the hospital, and she doubts it’ll be any different at home.

So he stays, and she calls her sister to ask her to drive down.

That first night, over slices of pizza because neither of them have the energy to cook actual food, she thanks him. He finds it confusing.

“For dinner? Certainly.”

She shakes her head, biting back a smile. “No. I mean, yes, thank you for dinner, but that’s not what I meant. Thank you for coming. I hadn’t realised I hadn’t said that to you yet.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” he replies. “It’s my fault you were there to begin with. The least I could do was make sure you got out again.”

Tipping her head to the side, she gives him a long look. It’s the one that made him fall in love with her, and maybe a year ago, it would have hurt to see it. Now, he just finds the familiarity comforting.

“Is that really what you think?”

“Dave tells me I shouldn’t.”

Saying that when they were married would have pissed her off; now, she just nods, reaching up to brush a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “He’d be right. You’re not the cause of psychotic people now any more than you were when we were married.” She sighs. “I’m glad you’re good at your job.” Then she hesitates. “I’m sorry I never understood it.”

“Don’t be,” he answers after a brief moment, trying to hide his surprise. “For your sake, I wish you still didn’t.”

( _Dies Irae_ )

Jessica Brooks arrives to stay with her sister the following afternoon, but her cool greeting is another thing that doesn’t sting as much as it used to. He leaves quietly with Jack, enjoying the uninterrupted time with his son and trying to ignore the fact that it’s been years, George Foyet’s interference entirely aside, since he’s been able to do that. The thought occurs to him to take another week, but he tells himself it’s a bad idea and keeps going.

In the park one evening, midway through his leave, he’s sitting on a bench watching Jack when someone sits down beside him. Surprised, he turns to see Dave.

“Hey. Everything okay at the office?”

The other man rolls his eyes. “After all this, that’s your first question?”

Aaron shrugs, glancing back at his son for a moment, and Dave sighs. They haven’t seen one another since Haley was in the hospital, and he’s not sure if he’s welcome.

“So. Are you going to kill me one of these days when I’m not looking?” He’s only half-kidding. In another man, the tone might have been called tentative; in Dave Rossi, it’s given the dignity of “quiet”.

Chuckling softly at the phrasing, Aaron shakes his head. “If I was, wouldn’t telling you about it be counterproductive?”

“Perhaps.”

Sighing, Aaron shakes his head. “No. You were right. I know better than that. It’s just…”

“Yeah,” his friend answers when it’s clear he’s not going to finish his sentence. “I know.”

Nodding, the other agent runs a hand through his hair. “Thank you,” he adds, catching Dave’s eye.

“You’re welcome.” He hesitates, and Aaron’s expression turns to one of concern.

“What?”

“You might be interested to know they’re transferring Foyet to Lee next week.”

Eyes wary, he shakes his head. “Please tell me he can’t walk yet.”

“He can’t walk yet,” Dave answers obligingly. “He’s also being escorted by a Bureau team, state police from New Mexico and Virginia, and it’s entirely possible they’ll call in the National Guard, too.”

It’s impossible to tell if he’s being flip or not, and for a long moment, neither of them say anything. Dave wonders if tonight was the best time to mention it, but it’s Aaron who breaks the silence, leaning forward to brace his elbows on his knees.

“I don’t think I’d be able to do this again.”

It’s perhaps the most honest thing he’s said about the situation yet. He’s resolutely pushed the “what if?” about Foyet out of his mind, determined to simply enjoy having his son back, but he’d rather Foyet kill him than wind him back through hell. Ninety-five percent of him is certain he’d not walk back out.

Matching his friend’s position and placing himself shoulder-to-shoulder with the younger man, Dave watches Jack instead of his father. “You won’t have to.”

It’s a foolhardy promise, but one he intends to keep, and he doesn’t doubt that the team would start a manhunt even if they had to use up their leave and quit their jobs to do it. They’d win, too.

“I hope you’re right.”

A pause; then, “Jack happy to see you again?”

As though someone flipped a switch, the answering smile is more reflexive than conscious; it turns wryly amused at Dave’s transparent changing of the subject, but the mood lightens nonetheless. “Yeah. Though he seems to think that if I walk around the corner, I’m never coming back.”

“Give him time.”

“I know. I don’t really have much of a choice.”

“The team misses you,” the older agent offers after a moment’s pause, and Aaron grins.

“How’s Derek doing?”

“Fine, but I think he’s more than ready to let you have your paperwork back.”

Laughing, Aaron just shakes his head. The contrast to the last eight months has not escaped him, and he misses the team, too; it’s the work he doesn’t miss right now, and that hasn’t happened in a while.

Later, when they’re about to leave, he stops Dave, calling him back. “Stop by if you’re free one of these days,” he suggests. “I’m sure Jack would like to see you.”

( _Dies Irae_ )

The Sunday before he returns to work, he drops Jack off at Haley’s in the afternoon with promises that he’ll be back. When his son asks if they’ll have to go on any more vacations, he just shakes his head and resists the urge to take him back again.

It’s almost an hour before Jack will let him leave, and though he thinks Haley looks better, he chooses not to stay to talk, because he’s not sure he’ll be able to convince himself to leave his son there. He just collapses in the driver’s seat of his car, trying to get his bearings. Foyet couldn’t have picked a better weapon, he thinks, because they’ll still be seeing the aftermath of this for some time. Perhaps its only upside, if it could even be called that, is his relationship with Haley. They’d done their best to keep from fighting in front of Jack, even after the divorce, but she’d been bitter and angry, and he’d been too many things to ever name. At some point, they’d worked their way up to a cool civility, but these days the ground tends to be a little more even. Remarrying would freeze that if either of them had a mind to, but if it means he can see Jack without feeling like he needs to run out of the house as quickly as possible, it’s enough.

With a sigh, he puts the car into gear and pulls out of the driveway, but he hesitates on his turnoff, eventually bypassing it for the next one. He still owes one of his agents a conversation.

So he drives out to Emily’s apartment complex and slips in behind one of the residents, taking the elevator up and knocking softly at her door. Just when he’s about to leave, he hears the chain being slid back, and the door opens. She looks surprised to see him, and he doesn’t blame her—he’d been rather tunnel-visioned since getting his family back, and though Morgan and Reid had stopped by with Dave and JJ had come around with Henry one weekend, he and Emily hadn’t sought one another out.

“Hotch,” she says, her tone lilting upward to make it a question. “What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”

“Fine,” he answers. The smile he offers her is tiny, self-deprecating and wry, and he shakes his head at himself. “I really don’t just talk to this team only when I need something,” he says after a moment, and her expression turns horrified.

“I didn’t mean—that’s not what I—”

He breathes out a low laugh, holding up a hand. Emily Prentiss stammering and scrambling for a foothold; that’s certainly new.

“I know,” he tells her, and the smile loses a little of its dryness. “I didn’t mean to imply you did.” Sticking his hands in his pockets, he sighs, making himself meet her eye. “Apparently I lied to you when I said we could talk later, since I’m almost a month late.”

At first, she looks confused, and then a tiny grin turns up the corners of her mouth. “I think you had a pretty good excuse.”

His smile widens just a touch, and he nods. “Glad you think so,” he offers quietly. “You want to give this another try?”

There’s a brief moment of hesitation, and then she nods in return, stepping back and pulling the door with her. “Come on in.”

  
 _Finis._

 _Feedback is always appreciated._


End file.
